While we feel our heart somersault and go thumpity-thump-thump when we see the love of our life, it is actually our brain that is in action here. Scientific American cite findings, from scientists at the University College London, that the area right behind our cerebral cortex - our "thinking" part of the brain-is what accounts for feelings of love.

Stop the press! Revision is needed.  We ought to rewrite all those romantic lines to "I love you with all of my brain!"

Curiously enough, putamen and insula (the regions where brain scans showed activity when experiment volunteers were shown pictures of a loved one) are also the regions identified with aggression and disgust. No wonder love and hate seem to be treading on a thin line!

More curious yet, is a discovery by Professor Semir Zeki, team leader; that a large part of the cerebral cortex ("thinking" part of the brain-remember?) deactivates (meaning, the person becomes less judgmental) when shown a picture of a loved one.

Now you have it ! If your best friend falls in love with a guy less comely than Quasimodo, don't ask her, "What were you thinking?" because she isn't.